Would you learn to shoot / use a gun as part of prepping?

[WallyWallyWally]

I’m new to this idea. Possibly I’ve watched too much Walking Dead, but I wonder what the point is if carefully building up all these stashes if you cannot defend them?

The few US prepping sites I’ve been on are pretty clear on the importance of this.

What do you think? Where does self-defence fit in your prepping plans?

I’m seriously considering joining a gun club and learning to shoot (I need a new hobby anyway).

Eh?!

Seriously? Assuming you are in the U.K. guns are very tightly controlled and we hardly have back woods to escape to! Learning to make basics like bread from scratch is a far more useful skill as oil blockades really have happened

Only if

a) you will be able to commit to this long term and refresh your skills annually
b) you believe you will have access to weaponry in the (realistic, ie non-zombie) scenarios you are prepping for. In the US, of course everyone would; UK, pretty unlikely.

By some bizarre luck I already know how to clean, load and shoot a rifle (fr om living abroad) so that's handy I suppose, wouldn't have a clue how to get hold of one in the UK though. I wonder if learning to make then shoot a bow and arrow might be more useful now though....

What would be the point of learning how to shoot if you don't have a gun to shoot with?

I'm in the UK. Better to learn other skills.

As for self defence- there are more realistic things I can do. Including running away.

I'm not in the UK - I'm in France, which is probably somewhere between the two: not exactly gun supermarkets, but certainly it's very common to keep guns at home for hunting and other such pursuits. And I lived in NZ formerly, and spent some time with a friend who did a lot of hunting, and had some practice with him.

You are all right though, I see that the difference between the US and the UK approach to / definition of / motivation behind prepping is quite different, and I rather got sucked down the rabbit hole of the US sites. I'm actually sorry for starting this thread - I can see that this kind of post can make people very dismissive of the idea of prepping as it is far from the kind of scenarios you guys are talking about. Like I say, too much dystopian fiction and not enough real-life scenario planning.

OP I would have a gun in the house if i could for this sort of reason.
And if you have one you should know how to use it

Op, not sure why you asked this question on a UK site.
As for how to protect my preps? Don't tell anyone in real life I have them.
If someone wants to break into my house while I am in it and steal anything, there is fuck all I can do about it, realistically.

Both me & DS are good shots, and good with a bow and arrow. DS is an excellent axe thrower. So if there was a zombie apocalypse then we'd be ok. Not for normal prepping.

Let's say you were in a real-world scenario and you had prepped by storing water and dried food etc, and a group of people arrived with guns demanding you hand over your stuff. Would knowing how to shoot/having a gun help you? Or would it likely just increase the chances of you being shot?

In this real-world scenario, the only people who would be stealing from others would be the truly bad people, who would just shoot you as soon as they saw you have a gun, or the truly desperate, and would you want to turn away the truly desperate?

"would you want to turn away the truly desperate?"

It would depend on how threatening they were and how bad things were.

Nothing can save you from the Zombies though. You'll just have to accept your fate.